Losing It All

Chapter 8

Time went on and Amanda grew. But we didn’t grow apart. I went to all her birthday parties, spent Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with her, and was allowed to see her on weekends. But being the dad I was I wanted more, and when I couldn’t get it, it left me feeling confused, angry, and lost. The result: I pushed myself deeper into espiritismo. I immersed myself in a world of witchcraft parties, cleansing ceremonies, tarot card readings, and promotions to higher demonic ranks, learning new secrets. I liked learning more about the religion. How demons liked things done for them. Which ones liked blood and which ones preferred roosters or birds. I learned the different languages demons spoke so I could understand them. It was something like those “Hallelujah people” who spoke in a strange language themselves.

Higher levels brought new challenges and new skills. Each time I predicted someone’s future, my powers increased, and with each increase unsuspecting people fell prey to whatever I told them— things only they knew about. This left them in awe, allowing me to do what I had done to others— reach down into their souls and drain them of their only means of protection: the power to resist the dark forces of espiritismo. Recruiting souls became my passion, a mission I lived to fulfill daily for the spirits I served.

By this point, my nightlife at the clubs was out of control. As much as I wanted to stop, a power stronger than me kept dragging me back. The clubs became like a playground for me. It was there that I started to recruit people into the dark side, introducing them to the religion. It was an addiction that kept me out many nights until the next morning.

I always hoped those I came across were the so-called Christians. They were my favorites. I was eager to challenge their “faith” and what they believed to be the truth. By getting them to agree to do a fortune reading, they allowed me to usher them through an open door to the satanic world. I exposed them to an evil they had no idea of, an evil that would bring all sorts of misfortune upon their lives. They always thought they had it all together and were better than others, and that the world I lived in was not good enough for them. How I hated hearing them talk about this man called Jesus and how much He loved them. To me it was foolishness, and they deserved to be punished. That’s what made them my favorites.

Oddly enough, Christians weren’t all that hard to find in my world. Witches and warlocks threw house parties all the time, and often they would invite friends who claimed to be Christians— people who didn’t know the secret lives we carried on apart from our jobs and daytime facades.

I strolled into just such a house party one night and scanned the room, reading the vibes that came off the people there and asking the spirits to direct me to the souls that were ripe for the plucking.

Julio, the man who hosted that night’s party, flagged me down when I stepped through the front

door. “Hey, John, you made it! Come on over here, man. I want to introduce you to someone.”

I nodded back at him and headed in his direction, taking long, deliberate strides. I could see the guy he stood next to sizing me up, thinking, Who is this tall man dressed all in black?

I sensed a vibe of fascination . . . and maybe a little fear. Perfect. “What’s happening?” I said as Julio and I shook hands. I darted my eyes to the stranger by his side.

“Oh, yeah,” Julio said, “this is my friend Chris. He goes to church. You know, one of those holy rollers!” He jabbed Chris with his elbow and the guy laughed.

“How’s it going, Chris?” I said politely, extending my hand. “My name is John.” And then I stood back and watched the situation for a while, letting Julio and Chris banter on about nothing as the wine flowed and their tongues got looser. Every now and then I interjected something humorous into the conversation until Chris warmed up to me and regarded me as a new friend.

Excusing myself, I mingled throughout the party, renewing old acquaintances and making new ones. Sometime later that night I waited until the spirits told me it was time to invade Chris’s spiritual space. I strolled over and refilled my wineglass next to where he was standing.

“Hey, Chris, we met earlier,” I said. “Nice party going on. There’s a few cute girls in here,

huh?”

Chris smiled in recognition. “Oh, yeah . . . John, right? Yeah, dude, I know what you mean.

I’ve been trying to chat up a few girls but no luck so far.”

I ignored his comment and went in for the kill. “You know, there’s something interesting that I know about you that the people in your life don’t know.”

Caught off guard, Chris laughed awkwardly. “Well, tell me, what do you know about me that nobody else knows? The suspense is killing me.”

I kept a smile from spreading across my face. Without realizing it, his response had just opened a door for me to come into his spiritual space. I released a spirit of unbelief in his mind because I knew that the battlefield between him and me was in the mind. If I was able to capture a person’s mind I was able to capture their heart, and that’s how they became my victims no matter where I met them—lounges, subways, house gatherings.

I told him what had happened in his personal life that no one knew about, the skeletons hidden deep in his closet even though he claimed to be a Christian. I fought hard to keep a sneer off my face as I watched Chris’s wide-eyed stare turn into a look of desperation and fear and, finally, helplessness. He was totally drained. It felt like I was choking him to death slowly, and I got a sense of power and enjoyment, ripping him open spiritually. I left him so dazed by my powers that he was already drunk in the spirit from the taste I had left behind.

Eager to prove my powers, I took every opportunity to show off the superiority of my religion, and sometimes that resulted in a battle of wills—and egos—between me and a good friend who was Muslim. We made light of it, but Muhammad and I taunted each other back and forth, him praising the powers of Allah and I declaring Satan the supreme ruler.

“I believe my religion is stronger than yours and I’m going to prove it to you,” I said as we sauntered into the Step-In Diner in Parkchester late one afternoon and slid into a back booth. “Yours is a Mickey Mouse religion, and today’s the day that you’re going to have to prove it.”

Muhammad glared at me with mock hostility. “Then I’ll prove it.”

We waited for the waitress to leave, and I leaned in across the table, pointing my finger in his direction. “Either your religion is bigger than mine, or mine is bigger than yours. You wanna see power? My religion and my daddy have more power than your religion. I’ll give you the chance to go

first.”

I took a long drink of my soda and turned to the two girls sitting in the booth across from us.

“Excuse me,” I said to the dark-haired girl, “but my friend doesn’t believe I have fortune-telling powers, and I want to prove it to him. He thinks he has them too. Would you allow us to tell you some things about your life?”

The girls looked at each other and giggled, then shrugged. “Why not?” “I’m going to allow my friend Muhammad to go first,” I said.

Muhammad turned to the girls. “You both got boyfriends, right? And you’re both in love, right? And you’ve been with your boyfriends for a very long time.”

The girls shook their heads and laughed. “You’re way off,” the dark-haired girl said. “Not true.” She looked at me. “Now it’s your turn.”

Even as I prepared to speak I sensed the demon show up who was going to help me. I knew nothing about these girls—what walk of life they came from, what they were into—but I was about to read their mail in a way they never expected.

They thought it was a game, but instantly I turned serious. “You recently broke up with your boyfriend,” I told the first girl. “You caught him cheating. This is the third time in your life that you’ve been stepped on by a man.” Her face went blank and she looked across the booth at her friend in a wordless appeal.

“And you,” I said, pointing to the other girl, “you’re nothing but a spare tire. You’re worthless. You hand yourself out to any man. You can’t even get your own man. You don’t even remember the last time you had a real relationship ’cause you’re too busy taking other people’s men.”

The second girl’s face turned red and her eyes pooled with tears, but I didn’t care. I turned back to Mohammad and gave him a raised-eyebrow look.

“How do you know these things?” the dark-haired girl asked. Her friend was still too dumbfounded to speak.

I just laughed. “I told you—I have powers.”

The girls tried to shake things off, not believing what had just happened, and they pointed in my direction. “He’s the one with the powers. He’s the powerful one.”

That day Muhammad had to bow down to my god. His religion was worthless.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 795